In Part 1, we explored how different ”reading Umwelten”—perceptual worlds of text comprehension—mean that 85–90% of Americans experience journalism differently than the expert readers who create it. But the accessibility challenge goes beyond reading ability alone.
It’s Not Just Reading Ability
The conversation about accessible journalism often gets framed as being about ”educated people” versus ”less educated people.” About readers who can handle complexity versus readers who can’t.
But that’s not what this is about at all.
I’m an expert on journalism innovation, AI transformation, and the Instagram account WeRateDogs. I can read sophisticated analysis in those domains (and dogs) all day. But ask me to identify the countries of the Middle East on a map, or explain the historical conflicts there with any depth, and I’m remedial. I should understand this better than I do, but I don’t.
You might be the opposite—a foreign policy expert who needs primers on AI, or a data scientist who’s lost when it comes to journalism business models.
We all have domains where we need context, background, simpler explanations. We all have moments where we need the ”101” version before we can handle the advanced analysis.
And it’s not just about ability—it’s about context and format preference too.
Sometimes I’m being active and listen to a podcast instead of reading an article. Sometimes an animated video explanation is objectively better at making a concept clear than text alone could ever be.
Take the viral video “Wealth Inequality in America”—13 years old, 26 million views. It takes one fact about wealth distribution and explains it in multiple visual ways using simple animated bar charts. What people think the distribution is. What they wish it was. What it actually is. Six minutes, no big media audience behind it, just clear visual explanation.
Could you write that story in text? Sure. Would it land the same way? Not even close. Some concepts are just better explained visually.
So when we talk about making journalism accessible across different Umwelten, we’re not talking about dumbing things down.
We’re talking about:
- Providing context for concepts you haven’t followed closely
- Meeting people in the formats that work for their current situation
- Using the best medium for the concept being explained
- Recognizing that everyone—EVERYONE—has knowledge gaps
This isn’t a burden. This is good information design. And it would serve all of us.
The False Choice
The industry tends to treat accessibility as binary: either maintain ”quality journalism” (complex, Level 4-5 text) or ”dumb it down” (which we resist because it feels like mission betrayal).
But this is a false choice. Remember what young people told researchers in the Reuters Digital News Report: they want traditional media to be more accessible, more varied and more entertaining—but they’re clear that they don’t want news to be dumbed down or sensationalised.
Accessible without being sensationalized. Varied without being superficial. Entertaining without being manipulative.
The real question: Can we deliver the same verified information, the same rigorous reporting, through multiple entry points designed for different needs, contexts, and Umwelten?
Learning From Others Who Solved This
We’re not the first industry to face this challenge. Healthcare, law, and government have all figured out how to deliver complex information at multiple levels without compromising accuracy.
Healthcare: Mayo Clinic Model
Medical information written for doctors looks nothing like medical information written for patients. But it’s the same accurate information. Mayo Clinic has mastered this:
- Doctor version: technical terminology, assumes medical knowledge, goes deep on mechanisms
- Patient version: plain language, defines terms, focuses on ”what this means for you”
- Both are accurate. Both are rigorous. Neither is ”dumbed down.”
Healthcare doesn’t apologize for making health information accessible. They see it as mission-critical. If patients can’t understand their diagnosis, they can’t make informed decisions.
Why is journalism different? If citizens can’t understand policy coverage, they can’t make informed decisions either.
Legal: Plain Language Movement
Courts now provide ”plain language” versions of legal documents alongside the official legal text. The plain language version isn’t legally binding, but it helps people understand what the legal document actually means.
This has expanded access to justice. People can understand their rights without needing a law degree.
Government: Plain Language Requirements
Federal agencies are required to write in plain language. Not because government work isn’t complex—it absolutely is. But because complexity in writing doesn’t make the work more rigorous, it just makes it less accessible.
The work remains sophisticated. The communication becomes clear.
The Pattern
All of these industries realized: Accessibility isn’t mission betrayal. It’s mission fulfillment.
You can’t serve your mission if people can’t access your work. Complexity in thinking is valuable. Complexity in communication is just a barrier.
The Trust Rebuilding Opportunity
When people say they don’t trust journalism, I wonder how many actually mean something different: ”Journalism doesn’t work for me.”
Not because they don’t value truth. But because every interaction with quality journalism reinforces that it wasn’t built for them.
Think about the person who tries to engage with a major investigative story—maybe because it affects their community, maybe because a friend shared it, maybe because they genuinely want to understand. They start reading. Within a few paragraphs, they’re lost. Too many unfamiliar terms. Too much assumed background knowledge. Too dense.
They don’t finish the article. And here’s what happens next: they don’t think “this topic is too complex for anyone to understand easily.“ They think “this wasn’t written for people like me.“
And they’re not entirely wrong.
Meanwhile, the podcaster who explains things conversationally? The YouTube channel that breaks down policy with simple graphics? The Facebook post that gives them a clear story with a clear villain? Those sources make people feel informed rather than excluded.
It doesn’t matter if those sources are misleading them. What matters is they’re accessible.
This creates a dangerous dynamic: The most accurate information becomes associated with feeling excluded, while the most accessible information becomes associated with feeling informed—even when it’s actively misleading.
Over time, “I can’t access this“ becomes “This isn’t for me“ becomes “I don’t trust this.“
The Alternative
What if fact-based journalism met people where they are in their understanding?
Not by compromising on accuracy. Not by sensationalizing. But by recognizing that accessibility is part of serving democracy, not a betrayal of it.
What if that person who opened an article and felt lost instead found:
- A ”New to this topic?” option that provided background
- An audio version they could listen to while commuting
- A visual explanation that made the relationships clear
- Context built in, not assumed
They’d successfully understand the information. They’d feel informed rather than excluded. And maybe—just maybe—they’d start to trust that journalism can actually serve them.
Partisan outlets understand this. They’ve built their success on accessibility, even when they sacrifice accuracy to get there. Fact-based journalism needs to figure out how to be both accurate and accessible.
Because right now, we’re losing people not because they don’t value truth, but because truth isn’t available in forms they can access.
The Questions We Should Be Asking
We’ve been asking the wrong questions. Here are better ones:
Instead of: “How do we get people to read at higher levels?“
Ask: “How do we deliver verified information at multiple levels?“
Instead of: “How do we maintain quality?“
Ask: “How do we define quality in terms of information access, not just prose sophistication?“
Instead of: “Why don’t people value journalism?“
Ask: “Have we made journalism valuable and accessible to people in the Umwelten they actually inhabit?“
Instead of: “How do we compete with partisan media?“
Ask: “What if partisan media’s advantage isn’t ideology but accessibility?“
The Moment We’re In
Here’s what we know:
We can keep designing for the 10–15% we’re currently reaching. Or we can redesign for accessibility without compromising accuracy.
This isn’t about lowering standards. It’s about recognizing that our current standards prioritize prose sophistication over information access. We’ve confused “sophisticated writing“ with “sophisticated journalism.“
Sophisticated journalism is:
- Rigorous reporting
- Verified information
- Source evaluation
- Evidence-based analysis
- Accountability
Sophisticated journalism is NOT:
- Necessarily complex sentences
- Academic vocabulary
- Single-format delivery
- Assuming universal background knowledge
- Making people feel excluded if they need context
We can maintain the former while rethinking the latter.
What This Requires
Making journalism accessible across different Umwelten requires:
Investment: Multi-modal production isn’t free. New tools and approaches cost money. Editorial oversight takes time.
Humility: Admitting that our current approach serves only a fraction of potential audiences.
Courage: Resisting the instinct that ”simpler” means ”lesser.”
Creativity: Figuring out which formats serve which information best.
Quality Control: Maintaining accuracy across all formats and all levels.
But here’s what it doesn’t require: Compromising on truth, accuracy, verification, or rigor.
Those are non-negotiable. How we deliver them? That should be flexible.
The Choice
Journalism is at a crossroads. We can:
Keep doing what we’re doing: Serving 10–15% of Americans while wondering why everyone else trusts partisan sources, podcasters, and Facebook posts instead of us.
Or redesign for accessibility: Serve the full spectrum of American readers by meeting them in their Umwelten while maintaining our commitment to verified, rigorous journalism.
The tick doesn’t need to become an eagle. The eagle just needs to recognize that the tick exists, experiences the world differently, and deserves access to truth in forms it can perceive.
Ed Yong writes that each creature is ”enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of an immense world.”
Journalists have been designing for our sensory bubble, our reading Umwelt, our sliver of the immense world of information consumption.
The question is: Are we ready to design for all the other Umwelten too?
Not by abandoning quality. By expanding access.
Not by dumbing down. By meeting people where they are.
Not by betraying journalism’s mission. By fulfilling it.